Friends who stick around
Keeping long-time friends as adults doesn't happen by accident.
When I was a kid, I saw my hometown friends nearly every day.
My mom always let me make my own choices, so I’d often prioritize time with friends over plans with my family, as most middle and high schoolers do. I realize now as an adult that this recurring habit in those precious years likely made her sad.
This imbalance of course stemmed from the well-intentioned though naive belief held by every teenager: My friends will be with me for a lifetime.
Sometimes that’s true. I’m close with several lifelong friends to this day.
But I’ve learned even the strongest bonds tend to stretch, drift or evaporate simply due to entropy.
Friendships, especially for men, often fade not from conflict but neglect. Sustaining them through adulthood requires an effort and vulnerability that break from the passive patterns of youth.
Growing up, I assumed I’d be lucky enough to rely on both friends and family forever. As is often the case, my mom knew better.
I know of no greater gap in understanding than that of a mother and her child in conversation about the vicissitudes of life.
She would tell me, gently but regularly, that life is long and friends — unlike family — come and go.
Not my friends, I’d think. These guys are with me to the end!
Sometimes the end arrives without ceremony. For various reasons — all unexpected, some innocuous, others inexplicable — my relationships with several of the guys I was once so close to have tempered through my mid-twenties.
Some of my childhood friends have drifted to the point of ghosting. No replies to calls or messages. No explanation of absence.
One friend I’ve known since I was five hasn’t replied to a call or text in years. The same goes for another friend from college who I would often take trips and play basketball with.
It’s strange to think neither will be at my wedding. They would have had decades of memories and inside jokes to mine for a champagne toast that only they could deliver.
Years of shared history can go poof just like that. I sometimes wonder if I should have reached out more. Maybe one extra phone call would have made all the difference.
People change and kids become adults. None of my friends have ever told me directly that they wished to move on from being pals, but the lesson’s been hammered home by those who emit radio silence.
Many of my long-time friends tell me they have observed the same.
Young men in particular, I think, feel less urgency to stay in touch and check in.
This stems in part from the widely-accepted “people vs. things” dichotomy in psychology. On average, boys and men are more interested in things and complex systems, whereas girls and women are more interested in people and what others are thinking and feeling.
In that light, it’s easy to understand why women, on average, tend to be better at keeping in touch with friends. They’ve had more practice.
The emergence of the internet and video games exacerbated this phenomenon in the early 2000s and 2010s. For adolescent boys at the time like myself, virtual arenas became a proxy for real-life camaraderie.
As my peers went from schoolboys to working-age men, video games remained but sports, shared geography and free time disappeared.
For many of my present and previous friends, video games are indeed a primary outlet. It makes sense. It’s a frictionless recreational and competitive outlet with no emotional demands.
That’s part of the tension here. For men to maintain friendships into adulthood, they must embrace friction, put in effort, and open themselves up to the possibility of rejection.
For most guys, none of that feels instinctual.
When we were kids, proximity did the work for us. No one had to make plans because everyone saw each other all the time. Friendships were ambient. But the chaos of adulthood — relocation, jobs, romantic partners, babies — has a way of destroying ambient time.
Our emotional baseline as kids was social by default. Constant companionship wired us for connection. But as adults we have to work hard to recreate the magic of proximity.
When everything has to go on a calendar, effort becomes the deciding factor in who stays in touch and who fades into the background.
It’s true that geographic churn, long hours, and remote work have undermined our ability to maintain relationships, even for those with the best intentions.
Still, for some friends, effort is the determinant.
Phone calls can turn to texts. Texts get shorter and more sporadic. The weeks between texts grow long and quiet. Soon enough, silence wins out and even the most enthusiastic one-way communications can go dark.
Not because anyone aimed for that outcome deliberately, but because no one chose otherwise.
It has taken most of my twenties for me to accept that adult friendships require a great deal of shared maintenance, no matter the length of shared history.
The same effort we pour into our jobs, gym routines and fiancés should be extended, however imperfectly, to the people we once believed would be there no matter what.
I consider myself lucky to have held on to a few of the friends I grew up with, with whom I can pick up a conversation no matter how much time has passed.
For the ones I’ve lost touch with, I don’t believe it was out of malice. Most drifted without a word or a fight.
Something I started doing last year is that every time a friend comes to mind, I send them a message. No matter how long it’s been or how out of the blue, these notes are always met with a welcome surprise.
Usually these lead to a phone call shortly after and we both end up feeling more grounded.
This can feel awkward at first, though I see awkwardness as the tax for keeping people close.
Psychologists call this the “IKEA effect,” which says we value the things we put effort into building, just like the furniture from IKEA. Friendships work the same way. Effort is what makes it worthwhile.
My mom was right to tell me early on that life accelerates in unexpected directions. Not all relationships are meant to endure the new terrain.
That said, I don’t believe entropy has to make strangers of us all.
Phil Rosen
Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, Opening Bell Daily
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please consider hitting the “like” button and sharing it with a friend. If the ideas resonated, I’d love to hear why — leave a comment below.
I recently embarked on a weekend camping trip with my best friend and I can strongly relate to your story, Phil. Our friendship was built on shared interests, Faith, and college cross-country running. Now, 18 months after his graduation—with a wife, a baby boy, and long work weeks—it’s been tough to stay as inseparable as we once were. What seemed like an act of Congress aligning our schedules for a boys trip turned into an unforgettable adventure. I can attest to your point—time and effort are required, but just like you said, the outcome is truly special!